Lean Into the Ache

I want to get married. 

Yes, shocking, I know--a young Catholic woman saying she desires to get married. 

I remember feeling the ache to be romantically involved with another person as young as 10 years old. Of course, I did not have the deep and beautiful understanding of marriage as I do now, but the ache was there. And over the years, that ache has only grown and deepened and widened. 

As a 24-year-old woman that has never had a serious relationship or even dated much, that ache has grown to be painful….almost unbearable. To the point where I have often found myself crying before God, asking him to either fulfill my deep desire or take it away. To smother and squelch the ache that burns in my heart. And so far, he has done neither, which has often led me to feel angry and abandoned by him. 

Why would he give me such a strong and deep desire that he intends to take so long to fulfill, if he even fulfills it at all? Can’t he just take it away until he brings the right man into my life? 

This ache only intensified after going through a very painful experience in which someone I deeply cared about rejected me, leaving me overflowing with love and affection with nowhere to channel it. Sitting before the Lord, begging him to take away my pain, my love for this person, and the desire to give myself fully to another that burned violently in my heart, I heard him speak clearly to me, “This ache you are feeling is an ache I feel all the time for all the souls who don’t return my love. Lean into the ache. It will draw you closer to me.”

It’s in the aches and pains, in desires unfulfilled, that we are united so closely to the bleeding and aching heart of Jesus that thirsts for the souls of indifferent hearts. It is in letting Jesus into those barren places that he brings life, that he carves a place more intimately within our souls.

And it’s in these aches that we realize we are not meant for this Earth. Even after getting married, having children, and fulfilling the many Earthly desires we Christian women often hold in our hearts, we will still ache. Because the deepest ache in our hearts is to be fully united with Christ in Heaven. Being fully united to another in marriage and having and raising children are experiences that begin to ease the ache, but we will not be fully fulfilled until we are united with Christ in Heaven. 

It is not easy. Trust me. I still complain and beg and throw fits before our Lord when the desire feels particularly deep and painful. But I’m slowly learning to stop running--to stop distracting and deflecting and numbing--and just sit with the Lord. Just sit with him in the ache. 

Lean into the ache my sisters, and let Jesus meet you intimately in your pain, in your unfulfilled desires. And let it remind you that this Earth is not our final destination, that somewhere higher is waiting for us. Where we will not ache. Where I will not cry out in pain. For our hearts will be fully fulfilled and united with the heart of our Savior. 

Lean into the ache. It is what will mold your heart into His.